By Beatrice Hawkins
With the hot dry weather we have been experiencing lately the garden has really suffered despite fertiliser, mulch and watering.
One plant that has thrived and continued to provide a vivid show of colour despite all this has been the hardy Vinca minor.
It is native to a wide area of Europe and into Turkey and the Mediterranean areas.
When I shifted to this house last autumn, I brought a large pot full and put it near my mailbox to provide a spot of colour.
They flowered well into winter as I am in a fairly frost free area of Warwick.
I finally pulled them out and shifted the pot not really thinking any more of them.
Then came late spring and plants started to come up everywhere. Great!
So off I went and bought a punnet of a purple variety and interspersed these among what I reliably assumed were pink, white and red plants.
With their glossy green leaves, the result looks quite spectacular.
They have completely filled the garden bed to the point where I can hardly open the mailbox and with only occasional watering, have survived the hot dry conditions when other plants have succumbed.
They are very forgiving as to soil types and require little care.
I have even seen them growing and flowering in the cracks in concrete paths.
I had grown Vinca before but now find that what I had growing was Vinca major, an invasive, running plant that was used as a ground cover and is considered a problem plant, but not quite on the noxious list yet, in NSW.
It is apparently very hard to eradicate as its shiny green leaves repel most poisons and the only reliable method is to either cut them off and paint the stub with glyphosate or cut off the runners and dig up the roots.
I knew it there as Periwinkle and it was a very effective groundcover under trees with either green or variegated leaves and pretty blue star flowers.
It was easy to control in the situation in which I found it in a large garden as I simply kept it cut in a circle. I loved my ride-on mower!
Vinca has some very useful medicinal properties as there are at least 86 alkaloids extracted from the plants in the Vinca genus.
The chemotherapy agent “vincristine” is just one of the extracts from Vinca and is used to treat some types of leukaemia, lymphoma and some childhood cancers.
I know some people see them as a pest because of the ease with which they self-seed but to me that is a positive.
They are easily removed if they pop up where you don’t want them but also easy to encourage if you want a good display of lasting colour in the hottest of weather.
Trivia for this week:
* The first person convicted of being drunk in charge of a lawnmower was in Norway in 1995.
* Garden gnomes were first brought to England from Germany in 1847 by Sir Charles Isham in the hope of attracting gnomes to his garden. Maybe he already had fairies at the bottom of his garden! Gnomes are now banned from the Chelsea Flower Show.
*Dandelions have been used as a food source for over 1000 years. The seeds were purposely carried to America and cultivated for use as greens in salads and teas. The roots were used as a vegetable or dried and ground as a coffee substitute. The flowers were used to make dandelion wine and as a natural colour for dyeing cloth.
Now here is good one to finish on and I hope it makes you smile.
*World Naked Gardening Day is celebrated on the first Saturday in May and aims to promote peace and harmony with nature.
With the little rain and cooler weather we have enjoyed over the weekend maybe we will have a few more entries in the Autumn Flower Show at St Mary’s Hall on Wednesday and Thursday 8 and 9 March.
If you can’t find anything to enter come along and have a look anyway and enjoy a delicious morning, afternoon tea or light lunch.
*This is an old article that has been digitised so our readers have access to our full catalogue.
